The order came a few hours after a Caracas news conference where they presented a report describing how Chavez has weakened democratic institutions and human rights guarantees in Venezuela.

"Chavez's expulsion of Human Rights Watch's team is further evidence of Venezuela's descent into intolerance," Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Chavez may have kicked out the messenger, but he has only reinforced the message civil liberties in Venezuela are under attack."

Staffers expelled

According to Roth, Vivanco and Wilkinson, who direct the Americas division for Human Rights Watch, were intercepted at their Caracas hotel Thursday night.

Authorities presented them with a letter accusing them of "anti-state activities" and of illegally entering Venezuela on tourist visas. Their cell phones were confiscated and they were driven to the international airport and put on a plane to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

On arrival in Sao Paulo, Vivanco, a Chilean, told an Associated Press reporter that "we were forcibly expelled from the country as if we were criminals." He added: "This the first time that this has happened to us in the hemisphere."

Venezuelan Communications Minister Andres Izarra blasted the Human Rights Watch report as "blind and malicious." He described the organization as an errand boy for the U.S. State Department.

"Human Rights Watch," he said, "is an active tool of the campaign to destabilize the country, and we don't have the least doubt that it is intimately tied to the forces trying to provoke a coup and the assassination" of Chavez.

Rebuttal expected

Izarra said the government would soon release a point-by-point rebuttal of the report.

Chavez, a former army paratrooper who staged a failed coup in 1992, was first elected in 1998 and has survived a recall election and an attempted coup.

He has funneled billions in oil wealth into health and education programs for the poor. He has also nationalized the country's oil industry and frequently clashed with the Bush administration, once calling President Bush the "devil" at an appearance before the U.N. General Assembly.

He has frequently charged that Bush is trying to assassinate him.

The 230-page Human Rights Watch report focuses on the impact of the Chavez government on the courts, the media, organized labor and civil society.

The report said the passage of a new constitution in 1999 offered a golden opportunity to strengthen the rule of law and the protection of human rights. Instead, the report said, Chavez sacrificed basic guarantees in pursuit of his own political agenda.

He has pledged to turn Venezuela into a socialist country.

In the absence of credible judicial oversight, the report said, Chavez has systematically pursued often discriminatory policies that have undercut journalists' freedom of expression, workers' freedom of association and civil society's ability to promote human rights.

The report acknowledged the most dramatic blow to Venezuela's democracy in the past decade was a 2002 coup, applauded by the Bush administration, that briefly removed Chavez from power.

"Fortunately, it lasted only two days," Vivanco said of the foiled coup. "Unfortunately, the Chavez government has exploited it ever since to justify policies that have degraded the country's democracy."